Lessons from a small genome

Cryptomonad algae result from a secondary endosymbiotic event and retain their enslaved red algal nucleus as a minute nucleomorph, the smallest nuclear genome known. Knowledge of the sequence of this diminutive nucleus provides important information and insights about basic genome organization such as chromosome domain organization and folding, mitotic chromosome segregation and other processes such as how four genomes are coordinately regulated in these unusually complex cells.